Jane Eyre Character Journey

The protagonist and narrator of the novel, Jane is an intelligent, honest, plain-featured young girl forced to contend with oppression, inequality, and hardship. Although she meets with a series of individuals who threaten her autonomy, Jane repeatedly succeeds at asserting herself and maintains her principles of justice, human dignity, and morality. She also values intellectual and emotional fulfillment. Her strong belief in gender and social equality challenges the Victorian prejudices against women and the poor. The development of Jane Eyre’s character is central to the novel. From the beginning, Jane possesses a sense of her self-worth and dignity, a commitment to justice and principle, a trust in God, and a passionate disposition. Her integrity is continually tested over the course of the novel, and Jane must learn to balance the frequently conflicting aspects of herself so as to find contentment. An orphan since early childhood, Jane feels exiled and ostracized at the beginning of the novel, and the cruel treatment she receives from her Aunt Reed and her cousins only exacerbates her feeling of alienation. Afraid that she will never find a true sense of home or community. In her search for freedom, Jane also struggles with the question of what type of freedom she wants. While Rochester initially offers Jane a chance to liberate her passions, Jane comes to realize that such freedom could also mean enslavement—by living as Rochester’s mistress, she would be sacrificing her dignity and integrity for the sake of her feelings.

When Jane leaves Gateshead, having suffered both physical and emotional abuse from Mrs Reed and her children as well as almost total isolation, Bronte uses the word severed’ in relation to Bessie, who had been the only person who had shown her any kindness at Gateshead. This implies sadness on the part of Jane, instead of the expected elation of leaving her abusers behind.
Bronte also uses the phrases whirled away to unknown’ and remote and mysterious regions’ to describe Jane’s limited view of the world. She feels that the journey is of preternatural length’ because she has been given no idea of how long it will take, or where she is going geographically and does not look forward to the journey. She is only ten years old, and once she arrives at Lowood, she is bewildered’ by the motion and noise of a new place.
At eighteen, Jane is more independent, and busies herself with preparations’ to go to Thornfield, in direct contrast to the last journey, where everything was arranged for her and she had little interest in proceedings.
She is forward looking but lacks confidence, and Bessie’s comment that she was no beauty as a child’ hurts her deeply. Her insecurity is shown by the secretive way she goes about advertising herself in the paper and finding out if she has had any replies to it. Once she gets the reply, and has to tell others about taking the post, she is haunted’ by a private fear’ that by doing something herself she will get into some scrape’ or cause trouble. She is worried about making a fool of herself, as she wants to be respectable’ and proper’. She imagines how Mrs Fairfax is the model of elderly English respectability’ and thinks that having an old lady no bad ingredient’ in her plans, because she feels she can learn a lot from her.
Her lack of confidence is also made clear by Bronte, when Jane arrives at Millcote. She makes the same reference to warming numbed hands by the fire as she did when Jane arrived at Lowood. Jane is alone again, unable to go back and yet not sure she can move forward, and she is subject to doubts and fears’.
On her way to Thornfield, Jane reflects on her past and realizes that she no longer has to put up with abuse. This realization that if Mrs Fairfax turns out to be another Mrs Reed, she can just re-advertise and get out of the situation is comforting to Jane, and the kindness she receives from Mrs Fairfax on her arrival is more than she expected.…...

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...revived, great and strong! He made me love him without looking at me.” (Bronte, Location 3229 Kindle Edition)
Charlotte Bronte’s novel, Jane Eyre displays a struggle with society and individualism as well as a journey of a character who longs to belong somewhere, to someone. Bronte unravels a young character who is cast from a home where she was isolated from love and sends her out into the world for her discover society and herself. Her life as a child was filled with resentment from her aunt and on the views of Christianity. As a young adult, she faces conflicts of wanting to fill the void in her heart and the need to be loved with the fear of losing her volition. Through the character Jane, Bronte shows us how the morality of this time period weighs on the decisions of the heroine.
The novel opens with our heroine living with the Reeds at Gates head. Bronte shows the transition of the character Jane, going from a passive and genderless childhood to a more turbulent stage of puberty (Showalter, 118). Living at Gates head, she was repelled from everyone in the house. Her aunt would not accept her even though she promised to care for the child. Jane was left as an outsider from John and the other children since she was told she was an unworthy individual. During this stage in life, the need for love and acceptance is enormous. Jane says she will never be able to leave the Reeds until she is a woman during a moment when she speaking with Mr. Lloyd and believes that......

...GNST 200
Term Paper
Jane Eyre: Charlotte Brontë
One of the most brilliant works of Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre was published in 1847 during a time when women were considered social embellishments, and nothing more than offspring bearers for that matter. She defied these beliefs by doing something no women did in that time, write. This book was revolutionary, especially since the release of Jane Austen’s works, which had a lot more of a happy ending feel that were published a century before. Charlotte Brontë and her sisters Emily and Anne, wrote novels that were much more dark and mysterious. Jane Eyre became one of the most successful novels of its era. This novel is set in the early decades of the nineteenth century, and depicts themes such as social class, religion, and gender relations. The novel is a hybrid of three genres: a romantic novel, a bildungsroman novel, and a gothic novel. Each of these genres are used in Jane Eyre, and rightfully so. They help to tell the story of Jane Eyre’s life in the most mysterious, sometimes supernatural, and retrospective way. I believe that Charlotte Brontë depicted her life through the novel of Jane Eyre, she did this by using her own experiences in life, namely through some key developments from her life translated into Jane Eyre’s life.
Jane Eyre and Charlotte Brontë embody each others lives. This is clear through all the similarities between the novel and real life. Some examples of these are: both Jane and Charlotte being......

...Individualism is the process of finding one’s own identity. Jane Eyre is a well renowned novel written by Charlotte Brontё about a plain young woman who goes through life in a very interesting way. Taking place in England during the Victorian Era, Brontё touches upon the life of one who refuses to fill in the social norms set for women. Being very headstrong and intelligent, the heroine faces love trials, especially with one, Mr. Rochester, who becomes her employer. Throughout the novel, Jane struggles to develop her own identity, but is always being repressed by some force. The theme of identity development is demonstrated in Jane Eyre in many ways. The novel demonstrates three people who help shape the identity Jane longs for and enhances her as a person, or represses her ideologies. Jane’s search for her identity is mainly influenced by the characters Mrs. Reed, Helen Burns, and Mr. Rochester. All the aforementioned characters show a large impact on Jane’s views of the world and of love, helping shape who she is and how she thinks.
Firstly, Jane Eyre’s identity search is heavily influenced by her aunt, Mrs. Reed. Jane was adopted by her Uncle Reed when her parents passed away when she was very little, but after his death, she was left to his wife. Mrs. Reed always mistreats Jane. Jane would be falsely accused or punished harshly. For example, Mrs. Reed told the maids Bessie and Abbot to “Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” (Brontё 6) all because she......

...JANE EYRE: HER PERSONAL AND MORAL VICTORIES
All people live by their own codes of conduct. Everyone, be they male or female, young or old, has their own sets of values, which they adhere to and which are unchanging even in the face of personal or societal pressures and conflicts to give them up. In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Jane is tempted many times to acquiesce to others' wishes and, thereby, give up her own moral standards and beliefs. Yet Jane remains steadfast in adhering to her personal code of conduct, namely to maintain feelings of high self-esteem, not to let herself be used and abused by others, and never to give up her religious convictions. Through many disappointments that she is faced with and with her constant struggle to gain independence and love, Jane never loses her self of self, nor does she give up her moral and spiritual values. Jane Eyre, from the very beginning of the novel, shows courage and self-confidence when she stands up to Mrs. Reed for wrongly accusing her to Mr. Brocklehurst of being a liar. Jane, a quiet, pensive girl, who until now took her aunt and cousins' torment without saying a word, suddenly could no longer hold her tongue. She suddenly felt a need to tell her aunt that as much as she appreciated having her put a roof over her head and providing food for her, her existence in Gateshead was nothing less than abominable. She says that servants are treated better than she is, and that Mrs. Reed was not keeping her promise to......

...What has Jane Eyre learnt at Lowood?
Importance of Education
Jane greets this new stage of her life with excitement, as it represents an escape from the family home where she has suffered such unhappiness. She has realised from an early age that for a poor and friendless girl like herself, life offers few possibilities: " ‘If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman’ " (chapter 3). Thus Mrs Reed, in her haste to be rid of the responsibility of a child she so dislikes, unwittingly hands Jane a priceless asset for the Victorian woman: an education.
Harsh Conditions at Lowood
Jane soon finds that the conditions at Lowood are unforgiving. The school is run by a Mr Brocklehurst, who believes that the lower class girls who constitute his pupils are unworthy of kind or generous treatment: “it was bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room” (chapter 5).
Food is also in short supply, “a thin oaten cake shared into fragments” or inedible porridge, “a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over, and none had......

...Film Review: Jane Eyre
Review by: L. E. J.
Target audience: 16+
Medium: Magazine
Starring: Ruth Wilson, Toby Stephens, Lorraine Ashbourne.
Run time: 202 min
1 Introduction
Inspired by the 1847 novel written by Charlotte Bronte, director Susanna White created this interesting adaptation in the form of a four-episode miniseries simply called “Jane Eyre”, released in 2006, starring actors Ruth Wilson, Toby Stephens and Lorraine Ashbourne.
2 The story
The story of Jane Eyre is one of hardship, jealousy and contempt, but also one of love, forgiveness, happiness and much, much more. Throughout the roughly three-and-a-half-hour plot we witness a woman’s journey from being an unwanted child left at an orphanage at an early age, into developing a far more interesting life than most would have expected.
Jane Eyre never knew her parents. She spent her early years with her aunt and two cousins, all of whom despised and resented her. Little Jane is an intelligent child, but her stubbornness only adds to her aunts hatred of her. Her aunt is convinced that the child is “possessed by Satan”.
Still a child, Jane is kicked out of her Aunts home and has to live in an orphanage for girls. The rule there is strict, and she is quite eager to get out, which she finally does eight years later when she is employed as a governess to the ward of a wealthy man named Edward Fairfax Rochester. It is here in Sir Rochester’s castle most of the plot plays out.
For the first time in......

...Essay Luong A7-02
English Literature Division - HUFS
Nguyen Hien Luong
A7-02
Teacher: Nguyen Tuan Ky
On the inspiring development of Jane Eyre’s character in the Charlotte Bronte’s novel of the same name
Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a master work of 19th century English literature
and a powerful symbol of the triumph of self will over circumstances. Jane Eyre overcame very trying — or should we say impossible — circumstances to obtain her personal freedom and self-determination at the end of the story. Her success is a powerful inspiration to millions of readers around the world. However, in my opinion, the most inspiring about the novel is not Jane’s success itself, but her character development, which served as the catalyst for this success. This essay aims to illustrate the uniqueness of Jane’s character development, and attempts to explain why this unique development took place.
What makes Jane’s character development special and unique is the fact that this type of development is not at all typical for people who were physically or mentally abused (as Jane certainly was during much of her ten-year stay at her uncle’s house). As a matter of fact, these people often grow up carrying with them emotional wounds that can never be healed. As a result, they are more likely to develop difficult personalities and turn into rebellious and violent individuals who see life and other human beings with much hatred. A research (Cathy Spatz Widom, "The Cycle...

...first published novel, Jane Eyre, although fictional, contains many autobiographical elements. There are many parallels between Charlotte and Jane and after researching it is evident that Charlotte Bronte drew on aspects of her own life to create Jane, in addition to the characters and the plot of the novel. These include connections between their childhood, adolescence, and love life and give a greater insight in to Charlotte’s thoughts and opinions.
Charlotte Bronte, born on April 21st 1816, is the third of six children born to Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell Bronte. Much like Bronte’s father, Charlotte’s father was also a “poor clergyman” (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte). At the mere age of five, Charlotte lost her mother to cancer and the six Bronte children were to be in the care of their aunt, Elizabeth Branwell. This theme of death parallels Jane’s early childhood, and having lost both of her parents, Jane is also put into the care of her aunt, the abusive Mrs Reed. Aunt Branwell, according to Bronte’s biography, “knew where her duty lay, but she appears to have derived neither pleasure nor contentment from the doing of it” (David Cody, Hartwick College, Charlotte Bronte: A brief biography). It is thought that Bronte drew heavily and exaggerated aspects of her Aunt Branwell to create Mrs Reed and there is a sense of hatred towards both women, with Jane having remarked that “[she] hates to live [with her aunt]” (Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre)
Jane Eyre’s education and......

...protagonist. Charlotte Bronte uses the character Jane Eyre to represent children who were seen but not heard “ ” A women in a patriarchy society and the treatment of the proletarian by the bourgeoisie. Bronte creates a microcosm were each character represents an aspect of society and through their interaction and treatment of Jane the reader is able to get a true understanding of the multiple themes, the Victorian society and Bronte’s own social and political believes . Therefore this novel is too complex to be simply associated with the theme of social class.
Throughout the novel Jane finds herself in a state of isolation .At the start of the novel through the interaction between John reed and Jane Eyre Bronte is able to portray a patriarchy society and show how it starts from a young age “ for they are mine” the use of personal pronouns further indicates his power over Jane . Even the servants recognise his position in the house hold “your master” as if he owns Jane. A Mere child. The use of the word “master” implies that she is his property and that she is below him in statues. . In a society where religion was everything and God was seen as the creator of all things men were seen as the closest thing to God in terms of the amount of power they held clearly demonstrating how insignificant women where compared to men in the Victorian society. The reader is able to understand Brontes feeling on this subject through the description of john by Jane “heavy limbs and......

...Unit 1 – Explorations in Poetry & Prose
“The main interest is the male characters.”
Both Jane Eyre and The Magic Toyshop present the reader with a rogues gallery of men who exhibit the worst, and occasionally the best, traits of their gender. To a modern feminist, the suggestion that both Jane and Melanie are defined by their experiences with these male characters would be a heresy, but there is little doubt that the males’ primary function is to provide the challenges that shape the emergent womanhood of the female protagonists. They are interesting because they are grotesque.
Jane’s early experiences with men are physically and verbally abusive, highlighting Jane’s vulnerability as both orphan and young girl in a patriarchal society: ”Wicked and cruel boy --- You are like the Roman emperors! “ This comparison may seem exaggerated, even comical, were it not to show how John’s reign of terror impacts on a young child whose only frame of reference lies in the books she reads so avidly. These early experiences also reflect the connivance of women in men’s abusive behaviour towards other women, whether through defect of character or social conditioning. “John no-one thwarted, much less punished…” John’s mother indulges her wayward son just as she preconditions Mr Brocklehurst in his treatment of Jane by calling her a liar. Melanie too is quickly exposed to the brutishness of a dominant male, the extreme effects manifest in the symbolic and actual silencing of...

...Secrets Have Consequences
In Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the main characters Jane Eyre, Edward Rochester, and Jane’s aunt, Mrs. Reed, learn that one lie or secret can accumulate into many lies or secrets and affects everyone around them as time progresses. In the beginning of the story Jane’s aunt, Mrs. Reed, hides things from Jane as a child, which affects her as a young adult, and Jane learns the secret of Thornfield which not only changes her life, but many others as well. In other words, characters’ lives, personalities, and so much more can change due to lies and secrets, just how Mrs. Reed keeps secrets and lies to Jane as a child that affect her as a young adult.
Initially, Mrs. Reed kept secrets and lied to Jane as a young child to not allow Jane to have a good life as a child, and an adult due to her jealousy. For an example, as a child, Jane was punished for actions she did not do, but her cousin John did and got away with because of Mrs. Reed’s jealously. As her punishment, she was sent to the red-room which frightened Jane because her uncle, Mr. Reed, passed away in it. In the red-room there was a secret drawer in the closet. Inside of the secret drawer there were papers, clothes, a jewel-casket, a portrait of Mr. Reed, “and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room—the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur” (8). While Jane was in the red-room she began to wonder why she deserved such awful treatment and what has she done to her......

...February 17, 2013
Jane Eyre Social Commentary
Words: 553
In Jane Eyre, a book written by Charlotte Bronte, the idea of social class is analyzed and interpreted as wrong and unjust; especially for middle class women. Gender roles are also portrayed in this novel through the occupation the characters in the book have. Many critics believe that the overall theme of this novel has to be associated with roles in society and how unbalanced they truly are.
Roles of middle-class women are seen in this novel through Jane. She was a governess throughout all adulthood. “Like Rochester, English society proved a "buoyant but unquiet sea" for Jane. Even though the Industrial Revolution created new opportunities for lower-class women, offering them new jobs such as in the factory, in place of household work, it did not do much good for the middle class. A single woman at this economic level still had only one option for respectable employment: working as a governess.” (thevictorianweb.com). Although a woman could maintain a decent living with this job, she could also anticipate "no security of employment, minimal wages, and an ambiguous status, somewhere between servant and family member that isolated her within the household" (Norton Anthology of English Literature, 2: 903). This is what was shown through Jane Eyre. If Jane did not marry and had no relatives to care for her, she would have to remain a governess all her life, which would mean that she would have to move from house...

...charlotte Bronte create sympathy for Jane Eyre in the opening of the novel?
The novel portrays a story of a young orphan by the name of Jane who has to live with her cruel aunt Mrs Reed and cousins at Gateshead Manor, where Jane is continually abused until she moves away to Lowood school and eventually finds happiness there. Bronte uses various techniques to create sympathy for Jane including: pathetic phallacy, symbolism, animal imagery, characterisation and language and structure. Charlotte Bronte uses pathetic phallacy as one of her main techniques that she uses to create sympathy for Jane. She uses the created setting to suggest that the weather could reflect Jane's state of mind. The type of weather really indicates and also allows us access to Jane's thoughts and feelings 'The cold winter wind had bought with it clouds so sombre and a rain so penetrating'. The winter wind is described as 'cold' bringing visuals of a bleak setting to the readers mind. Jane describes the clouds as 'sombre 'which is a human emotion which then suggests that maybe Jane could be personifying the clouds. However the personification of the 'sombre clouds' could be a mirror reflection of Jane herself and how she feels. One choice that the author decides to make is the narrative perspective option. Narrative perspective is the technique by which the author chooses to relate the story to the reader, and in this case, the narrator is the protagonist (Jane Eyre) producing first person narrative. “I...

...Stephanie Huang
Ms. Kwan
English 4U1
14 October 2011
“Jane Eyre”​
– Essay (Rough)
Individualism is the process of finding one’s own identity. ​
Jane Eyre​
is a well renowned
novel written by Charlotte Bront​​
ё about a plain young woman who goes through life in a very
interesting way. Taking place in England during the Victorian Era, Bront​​
ё touches upon the life
of one who refuses to fill in the social norms set for women. Being very headstrong and
intelligent, the heroine faces love trials, especially with one, Mr. Rochester, who becomes her
employer. Throughout the novel, Jane struggles to develop her own identity, but is always being
repressed by some force. The theme of identity development is demonstrated in ​
Jane Eyre​
in
many ways. The novel demonstrates three people who help shape the identity Jane longs for and
enhances her as a person, or represses her ideologies. Jane’s search for her identity is mainly
influenced by the characters Mrs. Reed, Helen Burns, and Mr. Rochester. All the aforementioned
characters show a large impact on Jane’s views of the world and of love, helping shape who she
is and how she thinks.
Firstly, Jane Eyre’s identity search is heavily influenced by her aunt, Mrs. Reed. Jane was
adopted by her Uncle Reed when her parents passed away when she was very little, but after his
death, she was left to his wife. Mrs. Reed always mistreats Jane. Jane would be falsely accused
or punished h......